Synthesis of IFN-β by Virus-Infected Chicken Embryo Cells Demonstrated with Specific Antisera and a New Bioassay

Transcripts of interferon-α(IFN-α) and IFN-β genes are present in virus-infected chicken cells, but because of a lack of appropriate assays and reagents, it was unclear if biologically active IFN-β is secreted. We have established a nonviral bioassay for the sensitive detection of chicken IFN (ChIFN). This assay is based on a quail cell line that carries a luciferase gene that is controlled by the IFN-responsive chicken Mx promoter. Luciferase activity was strongly stimulated when the indicator cells were incubated with ChIFN-α, ChIFN-β, or ChIFN-γ but not with chicken interleukin-1β (ChIL-1β). Unlike the classic antiviral assay that preferentially detects ChIFN-α, the Mx-luciferase assay detected ChIFN-α and ChIFN-β with similar sensitivity. With the help of this novel assay and with rabbit antisera specific for either IFN-α or IFN-β, we analyzed the composition of IFN in supernatants of virus-infected chicken embryo cells. Virtually all IFN produced in response to Newcastle disease virus (NDV) was IFN-α. However, IFN produced in response to influenza A or vaccinia virus (VV) was a mixture of usually more than 80% IFN-α and up to 20% IFN-β. Thus, IFN-α and IFN-β both contribute to the cytokine activity in supernatants of virus-infected chicken cells. Furthermore, the infecting virus appears to determine the IFN subtype composition

Truncated Chicken Interleukin-1β with Increased Biologic Activity

Chicken interleukin-1β (ChIL-1β) is synthesized as a precursor molecule that unlike its mammalian counterpart, lacks a typical caspase-1 cleavage site. Therefore, it was unclear if proteolytic cleavage of ChIL-1β can occur and if cleavage might modulate the biologic activity of this cytokine. Using an avian indicator cell line that carries an NF-κB-regulated luciferase reporter gene, we established a sensitive and highly specific bioassay for ChIL-1β. Experiments with a rabbit antiserum indicated that the NF-κB-stimulating activity in supernatants of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated chicken HD-11 macrophages is largely due to IL-1β and that proteolytic processing of natural and recombinant ChIL-1β is not very efficient. Functional analyses further revealed that cDNAs for either full-length or N-terminally truncated chicken ChIL-1β yielded active cytokine. A truncated molecule that closely resembled putative mature ChIL-1β exhibited more than 100-fold enhanced biologic activity after expression in mammalian cells, indicating that precursor cleavage is indeed of critical importance for maximal activity

When Uncle Sam Spills: A State Regulator’s Guide to Enforcement Actions Against the Federal Government Under the Clean Water Act

The U.S. government is one of the largest polluters on the planet. With over 700 domestic military bases and countless more federal facilities and vessels operating within state borders, there exists an enormous potential for spills and discharges of pollutants into state waters. The regulatory burden for enforcing environmental laws against the federal government falls on the Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators. But enforcing laws and regulations against the federal government and its progeny is a daunting regulatory task. Other scholarship addresses some of the vexing peculiarities involved when regulating Uncle Sam. Those works discuss the “confusing mess” that waivers of sovereign immunity in federal environmental statutes present, the “[l]imitations” of sovereign immunity under the Clean Water Act, and the challenges of regulating even just one action (vessel discharges) by one federal department (the Navy). This Comment aims to help state regulators navigate the often-oily waters of the pseudo-regulatory relationship that exists between states and the federal actors operating within their borders. To accomplish this, the piece outlines a four-part framework to assess a state’s ability to regulate federal actors’ conduct. It then applies that framework to assess Washington State’s regulatory authority over point source pollution from federal facilities pursuant to the Clean Water Act. It concludes by offering recommendations and best practices to state regulators to facilitate state regulatory action against federal actors when necessary

Cytokines of Birds: Conserved Functions

Targeted disruptions of the mouse genes for cytokines, cytokine receptors, or components of cytokine signaling cascades convincingly revealed the important roles of these molecules in immunologic processes. Cytokines are used at present as drugs to fight chronic microbial infections and cancer in humans, and they are being evaluated as immune response modifiers to improve vaccines. Until recently, only a few avian cytokines have been characterized, and potential applications thus have remained limited to mammals. Classic approaches to identify cytokine genes in birds proved difficult because sequence conservation is generally low. As new technology and high throughput sequencing became available, this situation changed quickly. We review here recent work that led to the identification of genes for the avian homologs of interferon-a/b (IFNa/b) and IFN-g, various interleukins (IL), and several chemokines. From the initial data on the biochemical properties of these molecules, a picture is emerging that shows that avian and mammalian cytokines may perform similar tasks, although their primary structures in most cases are remarkably different

Nature, environmentalism, and the politics of citizenship in post-civil war Lebanon

More than 20 years after its devastating civil war (1975–1990), Lebanon has seen a burgeoning of environmental activism and discourse. Contemporary environmentalism is articulated largely by Western-educated activists, many of them working in the Western donor–financed non-governmental organization sector. Like romantic nationalists and urban reformers of the late 19th century, these activists view access to green space and nature as promoting patriotic attachments, civic virtue, and healthy social behaviors. They view green space and nature, as well, as an actual site for peaceful social interaction between ordinarily hostile groups and, hence, for the creation of national cohesion. This article explores the faith that activists place in the natural environment and open space as an instrument of citizenship and as a solution to Lebanon’s sectarian factionalism. Lebanese environmentalism, we suggest, provides an important alternative political vision for Lebanon and a form of dissent against the political status quo. Ultimately, however, it cannot disentangle itself completely from the very sectarian political structure it seeks to dislodge

Citizenship, Identity, and Transnational Migration: Arab Immigrants to the US

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the changing relationships between identities, citizenship and the state in the context of globalisation. We first examine the ways in which scholars discuss changes in the ways in which citizenship and political identity are expressed in the context of international migration. We argue that much of the discussion of transnationalism and diaspora cling to an assumption that citizenship remains an important—though not defining—element of identity. Our position, by contrast, is that migration is one of a number of processes that transform the relationship between citizenship and identity. More specifically, we argue that it is possible to claim identity as a citizen of a country without claiming an identity as \u27belonging to\u27 or \u27being of\u27 that country, thus breaking the assumed congruity between citizenship, state and nation. We explore this possibility through a study of Arab immigrants in the US. Our findings, based on interviews with activists and an analysis of Arab American websites, suggest that concerns with both homeland and national integration are closely related to each other and may simultaneously inform immigrants\u27 political activism. These findings indicate a need to identify multiple axes of political identification and territorial attachment that shape immigrants\u27 sense of political membership. We argue for the importance of thinking about transnationalism as a process—and perhaps a strategy—as migrants negotiate the complex politics of citizenship and identity

Chicken Toll-like Receptor 3 Recognizes Its Cognate Ligand When Ectopically Expressed in Human Cells

Recognition of pathogens by toll-like receptors (TLRs) causes activation of signaling cascades that trigger cytokine secretion and, ultimately, innate immunity. Genes encoding proteins with substantial homology to mammalian TLR1, TLR2, TLR3, TLR4, TLR5, and TLR7 are present in the chicken genome, whereas orthologs of TLR8, TLR9, and TLR10 seem to be defective or missing. Except for chicken TLR2 (ChTLR2), which was previously shown to recognize lipopeptides and lipopolysaccharides (LPS), the ligand specificity of ChTLRs had not been determined. We found that polyI:C, LPS, R848, S-28463, and ODN2006, which are specifically recognized by TLR3, TLR4, TLR7/8, and TLR9 in mammals, induced substantial amounts of type I interferon (IFN) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in freshly prepared chicken splenocytes. To determine the ligand specificity of ChTLR3 and ChTLR7, we used a standard reporter assay frequently employed for analysis of mammalian TLRs. Neither S-28463 nor any other TLR ligand induced reporter activity in human 293 cells expressing ChTLR7. However, human 293 cells expressing ChTLR3 strongly and specifically responded to polyI:C, demonstrating that this chicken receptor represents a true ortholog of mammalian TLR3

Chicken BAFF

Members of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) family play key roles in the regulation of inflammation, immune responses and tissue homeostasis. Here we describe the identification of the chicken homologue of mammalian B cell activating factor of the TNF family (BAFF/BLyS). By searching a chicken EST database we identified two overlapping cDNA clones that code for the entire open reading frame of chicken BAFF (chBAFF), which contains a predicted transmembrane domain and a putative furin protease cleavage site like its mammalian counterparts. The amino acid identity between soluble chicken and human BAFF is 76%, considerably higher than for most other known cytokines. The chBAFF gene is most strongly expressed in the bursa of Fabricius. Soluble recombinant chBAFF produced by human 293T cells interacted with the mammalian cell-surface receptors TACI, BCMA and BAFF-R. It bound to chicken B cells, but not to other lymphocytes, and it promoted the survival of splenic chicken B cells in culture. Furthermore, bacterially expressed chBAFF induced the selective expansion of B cells in the spleen and cecal tonsils when administered to young chicks. Our results suggest that like its mammalian counterpart, chBAFF plays an important role in survival and/or proliferation of chicken B cells

‘We’re Just Like the Irish’: Narratives of Assimilation, Belonging, and Citizenship Among Arab American Activists

This paper examines narratives of assimilation and belonging as activists attempt to position Arab-Americans as citizens and full members of the American polity. In interviews with activists, the experience of the Irish as immigrants and citizens was often invoked as the paradigmatic example of how immigrants are incorporated as citizens—an example that activists promoted as one that Arabs would follow. By invoking the Irish experience, activists hope to remind Americans that immigration history is not one of effortless assimilation, but is rather characterized by systematic exclusion and marginalization. In so doing, they articulate narratives of assimilation and belonging that draw attention to (1) a shared history of immigration, marginalization, and acceptance, (2) the importance of civil rights movements that may seem to distinguish immigrants from a mythic mainstream whose race and ethnicity go unmarked, and (3) the ways in which the American experience is based on the acceptance of cultural differences predicated on shared political values of community. We argue that these strands of the narrative draw on themes in the national myth of immigration, belonging and citizenship, but that they are braided in ways that challenge many Americans\u27 views of their history

Circulations and the Entanglements of Citizenship Formation

Citizenship is given form, meaning, and power through the transactions and circulations that constitute it. Our focus in this article is the ways in which circulations through networks and institutions that extend beyond nation-states are enacted and encouraged through pedagogies and practices that moor habits of citizenship in daily lives. Although there has been significant attention to those practices at national and local levels, there has been relatively little attention to the ways that floating sites of citizenship formation are entwined with, but also seem to be suspended above, other sites. There are at least three ways in which circulations both construct those sites and are entwined in citizenship formation: They are the reason that the seeming contradiction between cosmopolitanism and efforts to moor citizens to place becomes unremarkable; they enable and shape the modes of interaction that conjoin politics and emotional geographies; and they are part of the way in which a common understanding of active citizenship is accepted almost without question. We use the examples of two international conferences for young citizen-activists to illustrate our arguments regarding the circulations of ideas, norms, and practice that are central to citizenship formation